I am looking for information from anyone who does this type of stretching activity and the similarities between these and yoga/meridian stretches.

I was wondering if out there in the ocean of Aikido knowledge could anyone help me with some info or leads.

Thanks
Andrew

Well the meridian stretching we do in the Ki Society as part of our warmups in Aikido classes is known as Makko-ho .
So you might want to google on that.
It's a practice that Tohei Sensei has been doing for decades and appears also in the Tempukai (Tempu Nakamura, founder of Japanese Yoga).